


The Ice Man's Heart

by waterloosunset123



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Childhood, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Family, Gen, Guilt, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, Mycroft Loves Sherlock, What Mycroft Thinks For 4 Minutes Before The Plane Turns Around, broken relationship, emotional mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1725521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterloosunset123/pseuds/waterloosunset123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft's stream of consciousness before the plane turns around.</p><p>'I suppose, Sherlock, that after all, I am frail (more than ever now).'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Man's Heart

_'Your loss would break my heart.’_

I could not – I _would_ not – bear to let you see me.

The syllables felt very unfamiliar coming of my mouth - sluggish and weak – like an atrophied muscle being used again. That is an appropriate simile, I think.  Admittedly, my ability to recognise and speak of sentiment and, more specifically, familial regard, is far from the strongest. But there I was, expressing feelings I claim never to have, feelings which I have always held to be irrational, primitive, dangerous, and frail.

I suppose, Sherlock, that after all, I _am_ frail (more than ever now).

Then there was your response, huffed out within the veil of a cough and a grey cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘ _What the hell am I supposed to say to that?’_ you said. Derision? If it was, you would be substantially correct to mock me and I would be inclined to respect you for it. Surprise? Possibly. You choked, did you not? Maybe not, but if it had been the case, what does startling you the way I did imply about _me_? Surely, it’s not still necessary to convince _you_ , of all people, that I… well, you are fully capable of deciphering the meaning of words cowering in such eloquent silence. It’s the way things have always worked between you and I. We’ve always read each other. Nothing needs altering.

And surely, I’ve made my position clear.

You came into my office that day, and I knew. You spoke, nevertheless. ‘ _Moriarty will kill John,’_ you said. You were afraid. Terrified, even. Caring… In complete disadvantage.

‘ _Will he?’_

‘ _Yes.’_

And there you were, falling, and surviving, with my aid.

I shall be the first to admit that that soldier fellow has done more for you than anyone ever could. More than Mummy, more than me, more than any insufferably idiotic psychiatrist your school made you endure. With him, you came _alive_ – words fail me to describe it otherwise – in a way you had not been since we were children.

We were children, once, Sherlock. I must confess I forget that sometimes (Then, again, sometimes, in my mind, you’re a little boy still, stuck in Neverland).

I can still see you that alive, a child, in front of me, rambling impossibly fast in a high, frighteningly well-spoken voice, almost jumping out of your skin in excitement. Like when you first discovered bees.

‘ _Mycroft,’_ you used to say, interrupting your own exuberance, dropping the hands that mere instants before had been gesturing wildly in the air. An age difference of eight years is quite a lot for a child. You were not an exception.

‘ _Yes, Sherlock_.’

And you would look up at me. ‘ _You’re not listening. Why?_ ’

I remember in times like those, I simply sighed and picked your five-year-old self up off the ground, saying ‘ _Okay, go on_.’

That’s how it was between us. I was your listener and your teacher, then. After... the Redbeard incident. (In retrospect, I suppose you always needed a likeness of John around: your sounding board, your protector, your... conductor of light).

Generally, I believe gratitude to be a useless and unnatural impulse because people are egotists, all of them, and if they so happen to stumble upon an action that benefits others it is only because it is suiting to _their_ purposes above all things, but Dr Watson… when it comes to you, there is a kind of shining selflessness in him. Always. He has, in truth, proven himself to be _well_ outside the norm repeatedly in _that_ and so many other regards, and, thus, I find myself grateful to him. Shocking, I know, but true. More truth: I have never been more grateful to anyone.

That’s why he had to live. The cost of that, dear brother, was your ‘death.’ So I helped.

When I offered you my help, was my message clear enough? I haven’t said it out loud _genuinely_ in thirty-five years. Not to you, not to anyone. In truth, I highly doubt I’m still capable of producing that particular phrase (but if I was, you, of all people, would be the only one, save Mummy and Father, whom I’d pronounce it for willingly). You should know, however, that that’s what I wanted to say, in coordinating your fall and keeping the most important person in your life alive. Be fair, though, what else was I saying if it wasn’t _that_?

There is the painful possibility, nonetheless, that it might have been clearer before, you at sixteen, me at twenty-four. Back when we still phoned each other without there being a threat to national security, or a terrorist alert, or a consulting criminal involved. There are flashes of the past displayed for me sometimes. They are tantalising. They hurt. After thirty years, we played deductions again.

I taught them to you when you were six. You’d be incorrect, initially, and I would set you right. ‘ _Aren’t you missing something?’_ I remember asking you. In response, you graced me with an infantile and impossibly ineffective version of your adult glare. I scoffed because I _invented_ that glare, brother mine, so you could not even have a hope of it working on me. You improved fast, however, soon discovering your own prodigious gifts for observation. But I taught you. Here I now am, paralysed by the regret of wronging you the way I did. Five minutes' unsupervised conversation... Just five minutes and Moriarty had you.

//

Magnussen never believed drugs to be your pressure point. Clearly, he never faced an unconscious, barely-breathing, vomit-surrounded, deathly-pale, painfully-young version of you.

You shot him. Before my eyes. I haven’t been that truly taken aback by _anything_ you’ve done in quite some time (possibly since I found out about Ms Adler being alive, after all). Before Magnussen threatened Dr Watson, I believed there to be no one you’d _want_ to kill. Oh, there would doubtless have been people caught in the hurricane of your occupation and mine, but you are _not_ , by nature, a killer - never have been. And I don't think even James Moriarty could steer you into that direction (he was your intellectual equal, an irresistible and elusive prey for your hunting pleasure, more than a nurturer for any murderous potential). You’re definitely not a psychopath or a sociopath, regardless of how you insist on describing yourself. I believed, in short, that there existed no mystery you’d solve that would warrant or demand justice to be served by your own hand.

This is how we are the same. You are addicted to the puzzle of it, to the game of the intellect, a perpetual slave to the beautiful data, discarding everything else. Or used to be. I confess, brother mine, that I constantly have to reimagine the bounds of John’s importance to you. And now of the importance of his happiness and his family. Dear Lord, you’ve changed. He made you actually _care_ about the concept of family. He made you finally deem it important. I suppose he _is_ more your family now than I ever could be, and probably more your brother than I ever was (in truth I’m glad to share the burden). For him, you shot Magnussen. Is that who you’ve become now? A family man?

There is one final question I wish to ask: would you kill for _me_? Because I can’t kill for you now. I can’t move heaven and earth to get you back, regardless of how ridiculous that sounds and how unreasonably much I want to be able to do so. I’m sorry. You’re on a plane, going out of my reach. And, for once in my life, I don’t believe I’ll be able to protect you. Because, now, I’m doubting all my connections, overwhelmed by the iron strength of the arms that have to be twisted in order to ensure your safety. It’s a suicide mission, and you know it. I’m so sorry. Dr Watson will remain ignorant of your fate, but I won’t. I envy him. I envy him so much. Six months and your brief candle will have been extinguished. He won’t know, but I will. Sherlock, I… I continue to hope against all hope. How hateful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> 30-JAN-2017. Made some edits and made it canon-compliant (taking into account the events of Series 4).


End file.
